"that's racing"

Wow, what a busy week and unfortunately, I can't say it was the best week I've had. It started on Wednesday when I traveled to the new race track at New Jersey Motorsports Park called Thunderbolt. I arrived to the track that afternoon and decided to go for a run around the track for a few laps since I haven't been there before. Well, in doing that, I sprained the tendon in my right foot so I had to be taped up for the rest of the week. Not really a big deal, but I should have realized that this was just the beginning of a very difficult and disappointing weekend.

I worked double duty this weekend racing in both the KONI Challenge in GS with my Kinetic Motorsports team and with my regular job at Krohn Racing in the Daytona Prototype class. Practice and qualifying went really well in both races. We qualified second and third with our Kinetic cars, and that is something I was very happy with. I qualified third and Todd Lamb, one of our Kinetic drivers qualified second. Todd co-drove with Andy Lally again, while I was teamed up with Kevin Molloy. This was Kevin's first race back in over a year after battling cancer and undergoing aggressive chemo therapy. We were very proud to see Kevin back in a race car and especially in our Kinetic Motorsport BMW M3.

Come race time, I had to start the race because I had the Daytona Prototype race I had to prep for later that day. Todd and I were leading the race for the first hour, swapping the lead. We did this to allow both of us to run in some clean air and make sure we had proper cooling for brakes, engine, etc. This is a new track so the grass has not grown in and if anyone runs off course, it gets very dusty. Our cars were running great and allowed us to open up a gap from the rest of the field.

At the third caution flag, we decided to pit and make a driver change in both cars. The crew did a fantastic job with the pit stop and got the cars back out quickly. Kevin ran a very good, clean race, gaining experience and getting used to being back behind the wheel of a race car. Andy got out in fourth but was getting frustrated because despite having a great car, every restart led to another caution. Cars were running into each other and going off track; this made it come down to a shoot out of five laps through to the end.

When we went green, Andy got a good start and put pressure on the Mustang ahead of him. That car made a mistake while Andy was on the side of him so Andy backed off as to not get tangled up in the mess. Unfortunately, a car from the Turner Team ran inside the apex curb, hit our car straight in the side and forced us off the track. This resulted in a right front puncture and a pit stop that dropped us to 30th with only three laps to go. We ended up finishing 12th and 13th in class.

After the KONI race, it was time to put on the "Krohn Green" race suit and get ready for the Daytona Prototype race with my co-driver Ricardo Zonta. I qualified the car in fifth place which I had split emotions about. I was 8/100's of a second from second place and I was hung up on my fast lap. At the same time I knew we had a very good race car and this was the closest we had qualified to our competitors all year, so I was really looking forward to this race.

I had a great start and was ready to start making a move when just after half a lap, we had the first full course caution come out due to an incident in Turn 1. At the restart, I was able to put some pressure on the Nos. 23 and 61 cars and was able to get by them and moved into third place. The car was running great, so I decided to pace myself and allow for some space between the two leaders and my position.

As I mentioned, I learned in the KONI race that if someone drops a wheel, it will create a huge dust cloud and it's almost impossible to see. I was pulling away from the fourth place car and felt very comfortable running about two seconds behind the top two while still running the same pace as them. After about 32 minutes into the race, another caution came out. We had already decided before the race that if this were to happen, we would pit and do a driver change, so that we would have that out of the way for the last stop.

We had a fantastic pit stop and came out second of those that pitted. About 15 minutes into Ricardo's stint, we started to get alarms that the engine was running hot. This ultimately ended up knocking us out of contention. We had to do a total of seven pit stops to re-pressure the water system every 10-12 laps, which ended up with a very disappointing 13th-place finish. It's frustrating that we had a car with the speed to win this weekend, but it was just another tough heart-braking day for the Krohn team. Well, as they say..."that's racing"...we won't give up, we'll be back even stronger for the next race and are already looking forward to winter testing and the ‘09 season.

On a personal note, I had some news that my wife's best friend from Sweden, who also is a close friend of mine, had a devastating weekend when her 8-year old daughter passed away after a 3-year battle with cancer. I guess in a sense it was a bit ironic that I raced this weekend with Kevin Molloy, a cancer survivor. You just never know what life is going to bring your way. When something like this happens, everything else is irrelative. We have to stop and think for a moment how fortunate we are to be healthy and to show love and support to those around us. Life is short and we need to take advantage of every minute while we can. My thoughts and prayers are with their family while going through this unimaginable time.

Well, thanks for reading. I'll be back next week with an update from Buford, Ga., since I get to be home for about 10 days now. I'm going to be solo with my son Max and dog (other son) Hugo this coming weekend so I'm sure there will be a lot to report that my wife may not want to know about, but I'm sure it all will work out! (fingers crossed!)

Have a great week!

Your friend, Nic